Link Profiles: How to Make Link Diversity Work for You

Link Profiles: How to Make Link Diversity Work for You

Link Profiles: How to Make Link Diversity Work for You

Is there anyone here who doesn’t want their website to have high rankings on major search engines like Google? Highly unlikely.

Obviously, you will want to be seen on the first page of SERPs to gain more visitors. The most effective means of achieving this would be through search engine optimization. When done properly, it can drive quality traffic to your site and increase its authority.

In SEO, the key to a successful campaign is a good link profile. Backlinks make up a huge percentage of broad search ranking factors; at least, according to a 2015 experts survey by Moz. Careful analysis and testing of existing data to show that links greatly affect how Google ranks your site. Many of the penalties given out to webmasters are largely based on link profiles, after all.

Now, you might be wondering as to what makes a “good” link profile. It can be summed up in one word, “diversity”. You will find that the websites that continue to enjoy quality traffic and good rankings are those that combine various methods and use different mediums.

What a Diverse Link Profile Is

Many of the most authoritative SEO publications and professionals preach about this all the time. Mainly, it’s about having backlinks across different platforms, including social media, news sites, and blogs.

It also involves using varied anchor text, be they branded, exact match, or long tail. Of course, these should point to different locations, such as the homepage, blog posts, contact page, and landing pages. A detailed discussion about these can be found below.

Where You Should Get Links From

Link diversity is all about getting your brand and content out there. Hence, you shouldn’t be afraid to use social networking, guest posting, reviews, and other forms of online interactions and outreach. Pursuing links on business directories and blogs can be easy so this task should be on top of your list. Apart from this, you should also get yourself in places where your competitors are listed.

High domain authority backlinks can appear questionable to search engines, especially if your website is new. Thus, you should mix in some nofollow, images, foreign TLDs, or sitewides in your profile. Just check all of the opportunities available to you and pursue those that you find credible. What’s important is for Google, Bing, and other search engines to see the links as being built naturally.

How You Should Vary Anchor Text

Likely, you have many keywords that you want to rank for and want to link them every chance you get. They can help you rank quickly but they are highly susceptible to algorithm changes. So what should you do? Use them as they remain important for your rank; simply mix in a variation of semantically relevant keywords. Search engines will see them as related to your primary keywords. Also, linking to them will show diversity and help you rank for similar terms.

It is also recommended to use long-tail keywords. For instance, if you are creating a backlink profile for a photography studio, you can use “professional photographer” together with location keywords (e.g. professional photographer Sydney, professional photographer New South Wales, etc.) along with variations such as “hire a professional photographer”. If you’re looking to push your branding, you can use the similar diluted anchor text type, which refers to branded anchor mixed with other words or phrases. For example, if you’re promoting the brand “Organic Beauty Products”, you can use “skin care by Organic Beauty Products” and the like.

What Should Be Linked Back To

A diverse link profile should show many linked pages. You shouldn’t have links to only one or two pages to your site but should also display links to your “About Us” page, Contact page, Blog page, Homepage, and other inner pages. The broader the diversity and distribution of the linked pages, the stronger your link profile will be.

Before you start contacting other sites to link to you, though, you should first check their relevancy to your own. This is a component known as local or topic-specific popularity. Initially developed by Teoma and integrated into ask.com, it is now a standard part of most search engine algorithms. Its main point is that a site’s backlinks should ideally come from other sites with relevant topics or niches.

How to Earn Links Better

Good advice for earning more backlinks are dime a dozen. Instead of going through the typical technicalities, you should try a different approach – become a more likable link builder. After all, if webmasters don’t like you, they’re not likely to give you those links.

Three tips to guide you:

Stop being a stalker while doing outreach. If a website doesn’t contain any contact information, it might mean that the webmaster or owner doesn’t want to be contacted. You should respect that rather than scrape their details and email them in desperation. Neither should you harass them on their social media profiles if you don’t want them blocking your IP address.

Look beyond appearances when making a judgement call. Just because a website looks amazing, it doesn’t mean that it is a good fit for your content. And just because a site looks plain and boring, it doesn’t mean that it can’t give you valuable link juice and quality traffic as well as help you rank better on SERPs.

Learn to accept rejection and move on. Once a webmaster says no, you should respect their decision instead of trying to negotiate. Though you might feel offended that your amazing content was rejected, you should know that there are many other good sites out there that will welcome you with open arms.

Summing Things Up

At this point, you should now understand the value of a diverse link profile and how you can make it work for your site. Don’t use the same anchor text over and over again, and choose sites with varying domain authorities. Load links to your inner pages to prevent you from getting penalised by Google. All that is left to do is to apply all of these things that you’ve learned in your own link building campaigns.

Author Bio:

Kris Reid is the founder and CEO of Ardor SEO and is the Coolest Guy in SEO. He is an expert in Digital Marketing, specialising in search and currently manages a team of specialists from Australia, Cambodia, and the Philippines. He loves traveling and believes that continuous development of personal skills and knowledge base is the key to success.